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Plans Being Finalized for 56th Annual Federation Meeting

Final preparations are being made for the 56th Annual Meeting of the Federation of New York State Bird Clubs to be held at the world famous Athenaeum Hotel on the grounds of the Chautauqua Institute from October 31 through November 2, 2003. 

The speaker on Saturday evening will be John Rappole, currently the Research Coordinator at the Conservation and Research Center of the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park.  He is the author of The Ecology of Migrant Birds — A Neotropical Perspective (1995), and has co-authored Birds of Texas (1994), Neotropical Migratory Birds (1995), and Nearctic Avian Migrants in the Neotropics (1995).

Jillian Liner , Important Bird Areas Program Coordinator from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, will speak on Friday evening regarding the New York State IBA program as it is developing.  On Saturday Valerie Freer and Kim Corwin will be discussing the New York State Breeding Bird Atlas, including information on the Atlas document to be published.

Field trips are planned to the renowned Roger Tory Peterson Institute located in Jamestown, New York with its holdings of Dr. Peterson's photographs, film and personal memorabilia, and the Jamestown Audubon Sanctuary, a 600 acre region with over 250 acres of managed wetlands and woodlands.  We will also visit the Chautauqua Lake region.  This area has recorded Tundra Swan and Ruddy Duck.  This region is one of four areas in Chautauqua County identified as Important Bird Areas.  On Sunday morning, a trip to another IBA, the Niagara River Corridor, is scheduled.  This site is world famous for gull observation as nineteen species have been recorded.

Specific registration information regarding conference and hotel arrangements will appear in the July issue of New York Birders.